Comfort in Discomfort- Molly Mansfield

Stepping into the Casablanca airport two weeks ago, I wasn’t struck with any sort of magical, different-feeling feeling. Somehow, I had expected to be filled to the brim with some kind of sensation of Morocco, the intense feeling that I had entered into a place that was different than the one from which I came.

Instead, I looked around and thought, “Okay, I’m in an airport.”

It was an airport like many others I’d been to before. I stood in the customs line for far too long with my dad, sister, and roommate Bailey, we picked up our suitcases, and found a taxi to the hotel. Almost immediately, I started to feel very uncomfortable. After studying Fusha Arabic for the past two semesters, I had expected to know at least a few useful phrases and had thought that I’d do alright communicating in Morocco. I was definitely wrong about this, and the few things that I tried to say were clearly not well received and/or made no sense. I felt a lot of responsibility for my family who had only come to Morocco on the way to another destination and spoke no Arabic at all.

After a whole day walking around Casablanca, deflecting people trying to sell us things, unsuccessfully speaking Arabic, getting lost, and feeling overwhelmed in several other ways, I sat on the train back to the hotel with only one thought running through my head over and over.

I wanted to leave.

As much fun as I had had that day, I was also freaking out. How could I want to leave? I’d been looking forward to this trip to Morocco for months, ready to learn more Arabic and travel around somewhere new. I had chosen to pass up on spending another summer with my family and friends and continuing my fun summer jobs. I had decided so certainly that this was something I wanted to do, but I could think of nothing other than how much I needed to get on the first plane back to New York. I could not spend six entire weeks this far away from my home.

I sat in bed in the hotel that evening trying to rationalize all of my thoughts, trying to figure out how disappointed in myself I would be (and how much the Duke withdrawal fee would be) if I threw in the towel and went home immediately. After texting some friends and having a night of sleep, I felt slightly less worried, but still very concerned about what I was going to do.

Perhaps luckily, the next day, we traveled to spend the week in Spain where my worries slowly evaporated, and eventually we returned, with another week of travel under our belts and genuinely excited to get to our host home in Fez and unpack our suitcases and sleep in the same bed for more than one night at a time. Our host family doesn’t speak much English, and we don’t speak much Darija, but each day in Fez brings more comfort and normality.

I was (I am) afraid of sexual harassment, getting lost, getting ripped off, not understanding the language, and being in a new place for so long. Pretty much all those fears have indeed come true, but not at the expense of me wanting to be here. The longer I’m in Fez, the more at home I feel. I don’t feel like the “Moroccan version” of me, or like I’ve been irrevocably altered by being somewhere that isn’t the United States of America for just one week, but I do feel like me.

Besides the fun excursions, learning new language, and traveling with friends, the part of Morocco I’ve enjoyed the most is falling into the routine and rhythm of Fez. I wake up, I catch the taxi to school, I study in the courtyard or a café, I walk around the city looking for new places to eat, I have dinner way too late at night, I wake up every morning at 4 am when I hear the call to prayer, and mostly I just exist, the same as I always have- in Fez, a city that is vibrant and uncomfortable and intriguing and unfamiliar and very, very fun. Day by day I’m learning how to be me in Morocco, and I’m really excited for the next five weeks.

Pictured: Bailey and me at The Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, Morocco